Saturday, June 07, 2008

On metaphysics of the long take

" Virtuosity itself, though an aspect of art, needs to be treated with caution; one can be impressed with the sort of sequences I am referring to without maintaining that they sum up the totality of voodle art. For there is, and there has always been, another kind of long take which is based on the contrary on simplicity. Here it is not the skill or the technical dexterity of the artist that is at issue, but the integrity and patient intensity of his gaze."Thinking of Andre Bazin while walking home, Sam Renseiw decided to record an almost unending take past some yellow chalked barraks, remembering that they now would log almost four centuries, and still being a vital part of the city. View the floating passage of time and space with a particular fine ending by clicking here or on the links above. (patafilm # 604, 03'10'', 17.5MB, Quicktime/mov - other versions at Blip.tv)Today's Bonus Lumiere Video features some fine footage in front of Charles Simonyi super yacht "Skat"( the 7th largest yacht in the world). Charles is, by the way, the chief architect of Microsoft, and likes to cruise around in Scandinavia during summer. (Lum # 120 "footage past simonyi's yacht", Lum # 120, 00'59'', 3.9MB, Quicktime/mov)Today's Patalab Metaphor Video re-play supplement features a limo passing, just around the corner from today's video location. (patafilm # 168,[13.05.2005 post recorded at 16:45 pm on thursday 11.05.2005 loc.: 55°41'26.98''N 12° 35'19.71''E], 00'45'', 3.7 MB, mov/quicktime)

9 Comments:

It is interesting and instructive to apply the horizontal rule to this long tracking shot ((if it is) is it (not) slowed down(?)). It focusses attention on the task (literally) at hand, at the point of voodle capture. There is something audacious about the post-stabalization, digital imaging technology has made Bazin somewhat redundant perhaps? Or is this part of the reappraisal of his 'ontological' argument?

As visual experiments these are so rarefied and interesting that I can no longer listen to the sound while watching them.

1)it is one take, not slowed.2)dolly'ed on bike, on the most uneaven old cobblestone-clad street in copenhagen. there are but very few of those surfaces left.3)regarding bazin: it is mostly interesting to re-view the many, almost teologigal postions, regarding the cinematic... and at the same time toggling with manovich's concepts...there might or must be something in-between these two positions territories to be explored.

4)re: sound: yes, i certainly understand and do agree with you.

(in that sense i sort of try to add the piano player to the silent movie.. a situation not unlike the dislike of it at the arrrival of sound in cinema.. it is the juxtaposition of two entities that interests me... adding one "image" the other... toying with this is trying to understand the "music video clip" genre...

the audio piece chosen (very quickly) is a late "modernist" piece > http://www.ubu.com/sound/tellus_7.html

not having any training in "composing" or the like at working with audio software , i realise that i have much to learn... more to come in that regard...

so in a way these experiments are part of a larger field, expanding all the time... overwhelming.

not having any training in "composing" or the like at working with audio software , i realise that i have much to learn... more to come in that regard...

The complexity of the sound can often smooth over the visuals. For example I noticed when doing the rotoremix and taking the sound off whilst editing that there was a lot more going on in the original video than I had at first seen as the music carried one along covering over edits and transitions and presenting a seamless flow. Sometimes a seamless flow is good sometimes it diverts one off into a sort of half switched off mode of reception.

For some reason the first time I tried to post this comment, it disappeared into the Blooger ether. I have tried to recreate it in case the first never materialises.

I was referring to the way the sound adds another narrativising layer to a video that already is a fascinating application of a problem and working through of a particular compositional concept. I have now watched the video with the sound and I hear a woman apparently giving a lecture on composition and cosmology over birdsong-like sounds, a twittery rhythm and long diminished organ chords. Much of the recording of the lecture, apart from the extract at the beginning, is reversed for some reason. The sound is by someone called Linda Fisher, a search tells me that someone of the same name has edited a book on feminist phenomenology. Already my reading of the video has digressed some way from a rather interesting and experimental exercise in compositional phenomena (and remember that a horizontal rule is simply a compositional tool to help you draw a straight line). Perhaps in the Patalogical school of associative parallelism this is a perfectably acceptable digression, but I also have the option of turning the sound off and concentrating on the experiment at hand.

Mostly this is a nice study of a particular architectural space, the formal elements are integral and I like the way the video ends, satisfyingly as it is an end that is anticipated, expected, but still a small surprise, as we leave the small world of the wonderful terrace and into the great square beyond.

I would also like to have seen the wobbly-cobbly cam version!

As for Bazin and bringing Manovich into the frame, yes they are both teleologists, normative theorists, looking for answers and definitions, it is interesting that you bring them both into the same frame but also into the much more agreeably openly questioning project of process.

thanks you for the generous & thoughtfull comments, very much obliged !

ok, then:here is (link to) the original wobbly-cobbly version for serious mash, rip-offs and remix >http://blip.tv/file/974195

(it sound like a fine freight train, or heavy rain; come to think of, it is actually rather nice in all its deadpaness...or its pure, fundamentalistic bazin-like, documentary un-alteredness)

re: "composition" and more to come >

i have acquired a monome 40 > http://monome.org/40hand had a student load a whole bunch of very interesting max/jitter software to go with it. unfortunately i did not have the time yet to play and seriously fool around with it, while voodling most of my precious spare time away :-)

What caught my eye was the minor variations in hue of the buildings.This variation, more than the interpolations of blue vans or surrounding streets, comprised the "action" in the film for me. An "action" of viewing a mild variation; Mondrian in motion, without the craft, or with a different defintion of "craft".

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About Me

'Pataphysics, an absurdist concept coined by the French writer Alfred Jarry, is a philosophy dedicated to studying what lies beyond the realm of metaphysics. Defined as: "The science of imaginary solutions, which symbolically attributes the properties of objects, described by their virtuality, to their lineaments". SPACETWO : PATALAB has functioned in this spirit since 2005 as a dynamic, experimental visual / spatial research laboratory run by SAM RENSEIW. Laced with quotes and useful links, Patalab02 is a forum for subtle, intriguing, complex, enchantingly moving imagery experiments exploring body-space morphologies and other architectures. Enjoy! All posting are videos. Click on the image or the appropriate link in the text to enter. For a view of older videos, see the archive link.